


Five Meditations on Death

by a2zmom



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Community: open_on_sunday, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Gen, Introspection, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a2zmom/pseuds/a2zmom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written for the Open on Sunday community. Prompt was Sarah Polley films.</p></blockquote>





	1. Trigger (Giles)

In the second before Angel cruelly snaps his neck, Giles makes his peace.

He has always put the world first. He would have killed Dawn, he smothered Ben in order to take down Glory, has tortured demons for information.

He has always being willing to do the tasks his slayer refused. She still possess an innocence he lost long ago. He knows that Buffy will never be able to stop Angel, even knowing the stakes. He will force her hand using the only means available.

Once again, he will help save the world. It's what a watcher does, after all.


	2. Dawn of the Dead (Dawn)

She's just a regular girl now. That's what everyone tells her.

But sometimes she wonders how could that be true. How does mystical energy that's thousands of years old just disappear? She's no physics wiz, but she's pretty sure that's not the way things works.

What's going to happen when she dies? Will there be a body to bury? Or will she just dissolve into the green light she started out as? If that's the case, does that mean she was never human?

She wishes there was someone to ask, but this isn't something that Dear Abbey has ever covered.


	3. The Sweet Hereafter (Buffy)

When she was sixteen, she was terrified of dying.

When she was twenty, she saw it as a release from having to shoulder a burden so great that it was crushing her.

Now there are hundreds of other slayers. Even so, she suspects she'll still die fighting.

She no longer longs for death. She knows there will be untenable choices she'll have to make in the future, but that's the price of saving the world. 

She isn't afraid of death catching up to her. She knows what's on the other side.

She only wishes that she knew how to live.


	4. Tomorrow's a Killer (Willow)

When she first finds out that Buffy kills her in the future, she's taken aback. It's not every day that your best friend admits to murdering you.

But on reflection, she isn't worried. Her future self is obviously powerful. The world bends to her will, even aging is not an obstacle. The future isn't set in stone and she views the death of her future self as a message for her to decipher. 

Buffy thinks she should give up magic but that's precisely the wrong direction to take. She needs to delve even deeper so that she's in complete control.


	5. The Life Before This (Xander)

His life is thoroughly boring. Five days a week he wakes up and goes to work. In the evenings, he and Dawn normally stay at home. Nighttime outings don't hold a lot of appeal.

For close to ten years, he was convinced he'd die young, his luck finally over. But instead, he's out of the fight entirely. He doesn't feel any guilt, he's already sacrificed too much. He no longer views long term plans as foolish optimism. Normal is all he craves.

And if he ever misses the adrenalin rush, all he has to do is touch his eye patch.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Open on Sunday community. Prompt was Sarah Polley films.


End file.
